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Dastardly Maltese billionaire Denis O'Brien's decision to gobble the pension pot at Independent Newspapers has been labelled as "scandalous", "shameful" and "sinister" by former employees. ICTU has described the move as a "new low in corporate behaviour" while the NUJ is calling for government intervention.

Head of the union Seamus Dooley highlighted the outrage of “two of Ireland‘s wealthiest men being enriched at the expense of pensioners" while the Irish Times reminds us that those effected are "real people" as column inches are given over to outline the stark details of personal hardship they face.

RTÉ Prime Time made space for coverage tonight while many journalists and industry correspondents have taken the unprecedented step of enthusiastically sharing sympathetic coverage from rival publications. One fearless writer today went so far as to chastise Kids These Days for worrying about racism, sexism, etc, when pensions funds are currently being raided. On Morning Ireland we are told that William Martin Murphy wouldn't have done and indeed, I've seen people who would have stepped over the bodies in 1913 this week carrying like the second coming of Lakin himself. Arise!

Judging by the tone and consideration of coverage all round, this is surely the worst injustice to befall workers since the Tribune or News of the World were unceremoniously closed down overnight...

So serious the issue, so high the stakes, that the joint NUJ/SIPTU protests have escaped any unfavourable comparisons with this "winter of discontent" we have been repeatedly warned about. Suddenly workers are entitled to the terms they signed up to and rarely has the divine right of shareholders been so strongly called into question.

Solidarity between journalists is truly heartening. Hope it extends the next time people who teach their kids & drive them to work need it.

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So serious the issue, so high the stakes, that the joint NUJ/SIPTU protests have escaped any unfavourable comparisons with this "winter of discontent" we have been repeatedly warned about.

Well during the Winter of discontent, rubbish was not collected and a lot of it sat rotting on the side of the road. The IN&M journalists generally produce a lot of rubbish and the unsold copies of the Dindo lie in cafes and hotel lobbies across Ireland. For most people, this is just the kind of "Austerity" that has been imposed by scum like Noonan, FG and FF. The IN&M people had their pension raided and they got f*cked over. As for the talking monkeys of the Dublin media who for so long told the Irish people what they should think and aided and abetted scams like Anglo Irish and lauded Dinny, it is very hard to have any sympathy for them. But it wasn't just the journalists who were affected. Ordinary people had their pensions raided too. They are unlikely to see any help arriving from the government as FG has a long history with Dinny.

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The Washington Post see "Russian hackers" everywhere

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.

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Since Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought WaPo for $250M a couple of years ago, (a pittance when you see the other companies that sell for $250M),
it has been steadily catching up with the NYT, at least online in terms of clicks, though not in print, (I think). Bezos has said he wants to turn it from what was essentially a local paper, into a global one. The plan is to switch from making a lot of money from relatively few people, to making a little money from a lot of people.

by Ken Doctor: "Twenty-sixteen was the year The Washington Post came of age -- again. ... Now, come 2017, the Post seems to be doing something unique in daily journalism: It is adding journalists early in the year. ... [C]ontent will be bolstered by the new quicker-response investigative team, more breaking news and positions added in both video and audio/podcast (built on the success of its 44-episode presidential podcast series). Then, the Post - which now sends out 62 different newsletters to its readers - will increase its newsletter and alerts staff."

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The Trump effect ... New York Times Co. CEO Mark Thompson announced this week that the paper added what he called an "astonishing" 308,000 net digital subscriptions in the first three months of the year (to 2.2 million), making it the best quarter for subscriber growth in The Times' history.
Recode's Peter Kakfa and Rani Molla, in "How the New York Times saved itself," write that the "bump is in large part a product of Donald Trump," but "also the result of a years-long effort the company has made to get its readers to pay for its product, rather than advertisers":

Twenty years ago, advertising revenue made up 63% of revenue and subscribers paid 27%. Now that's flipped: Subscribers account for 61% and ads for 33%.

Recode points out that's partly strategy and partly "against the newspaper's will": "The Times' advertising business peaked in the late '90s and ,,, fell off a cliff in the middle of the 2000s."

Be smart: Although these figures are encouraging for a newspaper the president continues to call "failing," much more disruption is still to come. The Q1 report shows 62% of ad revenues come from print a linchpin that will shrink or vanish.

A growth industry ... The Times plans to build a fact-checking unit (including an editor and better graphics), starting with a single reporter who arrived three months ago, 24-year-old Linda Qiu, per Public editor Liz Spayd.

As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.